Aeolus: Homeric Parallel

In Book 10 of The Odyssey, after the unfortunate encounter with the Cyclops (see headnote to Cyclops), Odysseus reaches Aeolia, ruled by Aeolus, whom Zeus had made "warden of the winds" (10:21; Fitzgerald, p. 178). Aeolus entertains Odysseus and tries to help him by confining all the unfavorable winds in a bag, which Odysseus stows in his ship. Within sight of Ithaca, Odysseus "nods" at the tiller. His men suspect him of having hidden some extraordinary treasure in the bag; they open it, release the winds, and the ships are driven back to Aeolia, where Aeolus refuses any further help to Odysseus and drives him away as "a man the blessed gods detest" (10:74; Fitzgerald, p. 179).

(from Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, "Ulysses" Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's "Ulysses" [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988], p. 128. The first numbers following quotes from The Odyssey [for example, 1:115] refer to book and line numbers in the Greek text; English translations, unless otherwise noted, are from The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fitzgerald [New York: Doubleday, 1961])